Hoenn Confirmed: Can Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire Uphold the Originals’ Legacy?

“Late bloomer” isn’t a term you hear all that often with regard to videogames. Most players forge their peak nostalgic memories at a very young age, and no matter how in-the-loop you remain as a certified adult gamer, it can often be difficult to recreate the magic you’re looking for with new releases. It’s a real problem, and one not even a Metascore above 90 can consistently fix.

For me, it took until middle school for my brain to lay down its heavy-duty emotional synapses, and as such, my nostalgic affections are displaced by something like two or three years when compared to most of my same-aged friends. Majora’s Mask is a great game, but my heart lies with Wind Waker. I respect the groundbreaking nature of Super Mario 64, but it was tough to go back without the sentient jetpack F.L.U.D.D. to guide me. And perhaps most notably, despite Gold and Silver’s widespread regard as Pokémon’s most fearsome heavy hitters (at least until Black and White came around in 2011), I will forever feel most at home with the sprawling seas and warming tall grass of the Hoenn region. It other words, Ruby and Sapphire own my childhood.

Interestingly enough, I’m far from alone in feeling this way, and it wasn’t until the announcement of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire that it began to really sink in. Surprised by the overwhelmingly positive — no, more like elated response from fans on message boards and comment sections alike, I decided to make like TM28 and do a bit of digging. The results, to my great satisfaction, are quite hilarious.

As it turns out, the idea of Hoenn remakes has become something of an internet meme, the crux of which involves blurting out “Hoenn confirmed!!!” at the slightest sign of Generation III remakes possibly being in development. It’s a bit similar to the jokes that continuously surround a theoretical Half-Life 3, except taken to a charmingly goofy extent. Here, fans display an unbridled, childlike awe over anything Hoenn contains, from the lake in Petalburg City to the comically overzealous MIDI trumpets that comprise Ruby and Sapphire’s soundtrack. Don’t believe me? Check out this “welcome video” from 4Chan’s Pokémon board for an idea of how thrilled people are. It conveys the spirit of the movement quite nicely. Oh, and be sure to read those YouTube comments too (you may want to turn annotations off).

See? I wasn’t kidding about the love of trumpets. Nor have I ever seen such joy over a flock of Wingull.

Jokes aside, though, what is it about the Generation III games that people love so dearly? It’s somewhat of a complex question, but I think I’ve narrowed it down to two main triggers: the leap in audiovisual fidelity, and the startling number of under-the-hood, game-changing features that Ruby and Sapphire introduced.

Let’s begin with the less subtle of the two. It’s important to remember that Gold and Silver, despite being GameBoy Color-compatible, weren’t close to maxing out that system’s graphical capabilities. This is largely because Nintendo kept them backwards compatible with GameBoy and GameBoy Pocket. In other words, Gold and Silver could still be played on your old-school hardware, in black and white, with no upgrade required. I was ecstatic over this as a kid, and the improvements in shading and sheer world-size were still notable even in grayscale, but ultimately the fidelity of the games stagnated.

And then there was Game Boy Advance. I don’t know what it was, but in the handheld space I doubt there will ever be a graphical jump as substantial as a move from 8 to 32-bit. When you boot up your GBA and are treated to a fully-animated opening sequence, with vibrant colors and MIDI-orchestrated music that completely eclipses anything your young brain has heard in Pokémon before (you can actually make out individual bassoons, tubas, etc.), your mind begins to form a memory that brands itself squarely at the front of your neocortex. I remember exactly where I was when I had this experience, and I’m sure most Ruby and Sapphire players reading do too.

Beyond their AV flair, Ruby and Sapphire added and altered a remarkable volume of now-standard Pokémon systems, ones that modern players may unknowingly take for granted. Passive Abilities attributed to various Pokémon species, personality descriptors that determine stat strengths and weaknesses, double battles, an overhaul to how EVs and IVs work; all of this and more debuted with these games on GBA. I won’t delve any deeper into the nerdery here, but if there was ever a release that refined and balanced the Pokémon experience to a T, Generation III was it. The fact that Ruby and Sapphire‘s plot dealt with a global crisis and awesome new villains (as opposed to run-of-the-mill Team Rocket shenanigans) only sweetened the deal.

Now, over ten years later, these games are returning. You may be surprised to know that nowhere in its teaser video did Nintendo actually state that these news games are even remakes at all. On one hand, there’s no reason to believe that they aren’t, but on the other? The water gets a bit murky. The use of “an epic new adventure” and “a dramatic new world” is a perplexing choice for games that simply aren’t new. Such phrasing could simply refer to the “newness” younger gamers will experience when playing, but I’m not ruling out a trick cleverly concealed partway down Nintendo’s sleeve. Stranger things have certainly happened.

Perhaps the best part of any Pokémon remake is the vast selection of goodies and endgame content to be enjoyed. Pokémon X and Y are notoriously lean in this area, so here’s hoping GameFreak can flesh out the Gen III remakes as best it can, and fix up X and Y’s engine while they’re at it. The lack of need for new story and creatures should certainly give them plenty of time to do what’s needed; not to mention deliver what fans expect.

A perfectly realized 3D Pokémon game. In Hoenn. A game with heaps of endgame content, ample extras, characters from other regions, and perhaps, just maybe, the ability to travel to said regions when the main story concludes. Now that is a game worthy of Ruby and Sapphire’s legacy. I can’t honestly say whether or not such a thing will unfold come November, but even if Nintendo does fall a bit short, I’m fairly certain my imagination can fill in gaps and recreate magic from all those years ago. That is, as long as it gets a boost from some MIDI trumpets.

[Header image by Royaru at DeviantArt]

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